One for the Onkel: Want to load a Mark 14 torp onto a WWII sub?

[NealT]

Having been on board at one point I sure wish I could take the time to go back down 'home' and lend a hand. However...work will not let me out for that. You guys have fun doing it and please, PLEASE don't hit that little ship next to her...

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

They don't hang pirates anymore? How times change!

Hell, no! They make 'em walk the plank!!!

[hyperion2206]

Originally Posted by geetrue

Me ... I volunteered to be ships swimmer in the summer of 64 on the USS Salmon SS-573 http://www.usssalmon.org/

I thought, hey if someone falls overboard I'm a pretty good swimmer, I can help them, right? Not exactly what the COB had in mind.

I found out the hard way that the job of a ships swimmer was to row out to the practice torpedo's after we fired them. Then tie a line in the nose for purposes of retrieving said torpedo and saving the US Navy a lot of money in not having to send out a special boat to do this for us.

The COB explained the job to me, a young 19 year old naive seaman, after we fired a practice torpedo off the coast of California somewhere near San Clemente Island.

We surface and the topside torpedo retrevival party reports topside. The boat held the record at 15 minutes from time of surfacing till the time the fish was back onboard.

I managed to break the record for the longest time it ever took on that beauitful summer day in the Pacific Ocean. I got into the little yellow rubber raft with a line tied to the raft and a line tied around my waist and I rowed my little raft to the practice torpedo rising and falling like a bouy with the wrll marked pointy end up.

I get to the fish in about ten minutes, but the darn thing won't stand still ... it goes up and me in my little raft go down. Everyone is yelling at me on the deck ... the captain is yelling at me from the bridge ... the scene starts to get comical.

I get the line through the bull nose and wham the boat goes down and the line slips out, everyone is yelling, so I left the saftey of the little raft and grab the fish by the nose and hog tie it like a calf roper.

Fall back into the water, grab the raft and by that time they are hauling the fish back in. I didn't have enough strength to row back to the boat, so they had to pull me back razing me of course on the way.

You learn in a hurry what volunteer means when it doesn't work out the way you thought it would ... I was very careful the rest of my time in the service not to willingly volunteer for anything again.

Isn't there an old saying: He who volunteers didn't understand the question?:p:rotfl:

[Puster Bill]

I'm still waiting for my QSL card from the Cavalla. Contacted them on 20 Meters over a year ago, in fact it was a memorable contact because the operator on the Cavalla had a high noise level and couldn't hear me on SSB, so I switched to CW and we had a cross-mode contact. Sent them a card, and never got one back. Which sucks, because I collect submarine QSL cards.

[elanaiba]

Gee, I'd love to be there. Of course I wont There's an ocean in the middle.

The hard part is to swim there...
Maybe I catch a U-boat from Kiel....

[RickC Sniper]

Geetrue that's a great story.

How far out did they run a practice torp? I ask because 15 minutes seems like a damn fast retrieval time.

[geetrue]

Not sure how far the torpedo went ... you see they didn't tell me about the record or the complete job description of the duties of the ship's swimmer till I was topside and being lowered into the raft.

But the record was for our boat and it didn't start till we surfaced. We had four big fairbanks morse diesels that could move the boat at 25 kts on the surface and we were using the old steam Mk 16's that could really boogie somewhere around 40kts.

Which reminds me of another sea story by the way ... We also fired live fish. We tried to sink an old WWII destroyer one time. They towed it out to the firing range and we lined up the shot, but the Mk 16 blew up right after it left the tube, raising the deck plates a few inches.

So the captain lines up for another shot, taking different angles and lets the second one go, right? The Mk 16 was traveling so fast it hits the destroyer and goes right through the ship blowing up after it comes out the other side.

The ship is still just sitting there dead in the water ... We secured from battle stations and spent the night checking out the remaning fish.

We come back at it the next day and fired an electric Mk38 ... blew her out if the water and she sank right away.

Not the end of story however, just a few weeks later we go out on a special run to test the crews skills, called battle efficency "E's" ... This one was for our fifth in a row which would be a first for subs and earn us a gold "E".

We had observers and everything ... We fire two Mk38 electric fish at the same time, set for passive homing and they both came back and skimned the teak decks behind the sail , crossing each other and kept on going. Scary and glad that it didn't happen when it was live fire exercise.

They gave us the fifth "E" anyway ... we had a skipper that was all american halfback at Navy called, "Big Daddy" later to become Admiral Liscomb.

[Captain_Jack]

Originally Posted by GakunGak

The hard part is to swim there...
Maybe I catch a U-boat from Kiel....

Nahhh...before you reached Pelican Island the Coast Guard would nab ya! :p

[Aimbot]

I'd be jealous if the Yorktown wasn't within walking distance of my apartment. :p

[Onkel Neal]

Morning breaks on the bow of CAVALLA as she awaits her new fish:


CAVALLA CAM

I'll be there in an hour, cheers

Neal

[HunterICX]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Morning breaks on the bow of CAVALLA as she awaits her new fish:


CAVALLA CAM

I'll be there in an hour, cheers

Neal

are you going to wave in the camera neal?

[Dowly]

Yayy! Wave to the camera!

[HunterICX]

Warning: Suspects on the Target Area!

Who is neal?

[Dowly]

CUT THAT FRICKING TREE!!! ffs! :rotfl: